CALL TO ACTION — END THE JAMA’IN ROADBLOCKS – 16TH OCTOBER 2012

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) calls on pro-Palestinian and peace activists from across the Occupied Territories to join Palestinians on 16th October to protest the roadblock preventing access to Jama’in Village. On this day, residents of Jama’in will remove an earthen mound that blocks access to their agricultural lands.

Jama’in is close to the illegal Tappuah settlement in the West Bank. There, settlers armed with automatic rifles, large dogs and blunt instruments regularly attack Palestinian agricultural workers and landowners. January saw over 100 olive trees chopped down and burnt by settlers, and at least two cars belonging to Palestinians were destroyed on the highway close to the Huwwara military checkpoint.

Access to agricultural land and particularly olive trees is essential for Palestinian villagers. Approximately eighty percent of cultivated land in Palestine is planted with olive trees, and the harvest provides between twenty and fifty percent of a farming family’s annual income. Holding a deep significance in Palestinian culture and the economy of the region, the olive harvest has become a matter of survival for rural Palestinians. It is because of this that the Israeli government and armed residents of its illegal colonies in the West Bank are attempting to disrupt access to agricultural lands.

Extremist settlers have launched a campaign of ‘price-tag’ attacks against Palestinians and their property as collective punishment for perceived anti-settlement legislation and activity by the Israeli government. The United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that violent attacks by settlers against Palestinians increased by more than fifty percent in 2011.

With a year-old roadblock preventing residents’ access to their fields, the people of Jama’in village request international activists join them in protesting the real-life consequences of Israeli occupation.